Thread: Food, inc...What you eat is not what you think it is, and the damage is HUGE

Damn.
Just finished watching this film.
....what an eye opener.
Once again the high cost of cheap, outweighs the savings.

Never heard of the film, but I imagine it takes the topic a bit far. I have a regularly customer who blames McDonald's for his having a stroke. Apparently they should inform their employees that eating there before and after your shift and during your lunch break for five years five days a week is unhealthy.


Then again, five years working at McDonald's just might lead to me eating a bullet.

If you're interested, "The Omnivore's Dilemna" by Michael Pollan is a fantastic treatment of the subject. I haven't been able to think about food the same way since I read it. I was so affected I bought copies and gave them to members of my family.

Very nice to see that some of us are aware of the dangers of the S.A.D. (standard America Diet). Maybe it should be called the standard MODERN diet, since it's not specific only to America.

Our bodies simply weren't designed to eat most of the "stuff" we put into them. One will never regret studying health and nutrition. You learn how to eat different, and from that you end up learning to cook some pretty good tasting stuff. If you're motivated enough.

Originally Posted by timj219

If you're interested, "The Omnivore's Dilemna" by Michael Pollan is a fantastic treatment of the subject. I haven't been able to think about food the same way since I read it. I was so affected I bought copies and gave them to members of my family.

Will do...thank you.

Things I didn't know before this film:

1) 98% of all meat sold in the world is from 5 companies.
2) Over 90% of all soybeans in America are controlled by one company.
3) One meat processing company processes over 70% of all meat sold in America...do I even need to say the implications of that?
4) The FDA and USDA top brass are populated with former executives from these 5 companies
5) Pre-1996 the USDA/FDA averaged over 50,000 inspections a year...after President Bush took office...less than 7000 a year.
6) It is illegal in Colorado to speak or write negative statements about a meat processing located there...no shit.

I could go on.

But - it's all good right?? - I mean we can buy hamburgers for $.99!!!!

Oh....over 10,000 individual illegal immigrants have been deported inside of one county...the county of one of the largest processing plants.
10,000...number of investigations/citations against the processing plant...ZERO.

Originally Posted by iamwhatiseem

Will do...thank you.

Things I didn't know before this film:

1) 98% of all meat sold in the world is from 5 companies.
2) Over 90% of all soybeans in America are controlled by one company.
3) One meat processing company processes over 70% of all meat sold in America...do I even need to say the implications of that?
4) The FDA and USDA top brass are populated with former executives from these 5 companies
5) Pre-1996 the USDA/FDA averaged over 50,000 inspections a year...after President Bush took office...less than 7000 a year.
6) It is illegal in Colorado to speak or write negative statements about a meat processing located there...no shit.

I could go on.

But - it's all good right?? - I mean we can buy hamburgers for $.99!!!!

And the USDA/FDA will tell us that this garbage is good for us

These are people that many Americans trust as a source of good info and advice about food and drugs.

Unfortunately, this is definitely not true.

Your health is in your hands and is your own responsibility. It's best that each of us study these things so we know what were doing to ourselves when we eat fast food, soda pop, wonder bread and sweetened everything daily. When we avoid fresh fruits and vegetables at all costs on a daily basis.

Yeah, I know, then you have to worry about the pesticides on your "fresh fruits and vegetables."

That's another book to be written probably.

Get them from your local farmers market where none of that toxic trash is used if you can. Even then you probably can't be sure.

Once again I might catch hell from the blind here for saying this - but a lot of this is the fault of consumers.
Once AGAIN I say - if it wasn't for OUR constant choosing cheap prices over all else - companies wouldn't be constantly trying to meet the demand of "cheap".
We have loss all sense of what a "value" is in this country.
Value use to mean a good product first, followed by service and then price.
Today...price, price, price......and then 300 continued repetitions later...quality and service.

Every single purchase you make is a "vote" given to companies in what is important to you.

Fast food nation was pretty disturbing too.

This is one of the problems with corporate ameria. Tighter controls from non-industry specific persons would be quite a bit more effective than letting the foxes guard the hen house.

One of the reasons I am glad I live on a farm and grow as much of my food as i can and have made strong friendships with the local amish population. My grandfather knew how to live with sustainable agriculture that didnt involve 10 tons of chemicals.

Originally Posted by iamwhatiseem

Once again I might catch hell from the blind here for saying this - but a lot of this is the fault of consumers.
Once AGAIN I say - if it wasn't for OUR constant choosing cheap prices over all else - companies wouldn't be constantly trying to meet the demand of "cheap".
We have loss all sense of what a "value" is in this country.
Value use to mean a good product first, followed by service and then price.
Today...price, price, price......and then 300 continued repetitions later...quality and service.

Every single purchase you make is a "vote" given to companies in what is important to you.

It is partly the consumers fault. It will continue this way as long as we keep "voting" with our $$ on garbage.

Of course we keep voting for political trash too, so I'm not sure we can change. Maybe a hard recession or depression is just what America needs.

Originally Posted by Rahmota

This is one of the problems with corporate ameria. Tighter controls from non-industry specific persons would be quite a bit more effective than letting the foxes guard the hen house.

One of the reasons I am glad I live on a farm and grow as much of my food as i can and have made strong friendships with the local amish population. My grandfather knew how to live with sustainable agriculture that didnt involve 10 tons of chemicals.

I get so sick of our "techno world" I sometimes think about moving and becoming amish People don't realize how rude and foolish they look blabbing on their cell phones constantly ... fiddling with their "blackberries" incessantly.

Common sense has left the "building"

I was surprised to find how many organic farms there are in my area and how many farmers markets. We're buying most of our fruit and veg from them now in season and we buy most of our meat from them year round. No pesticides and no transporting the stuff halfway around the world. The meat, especially the chicken, is more expensive but the veg is about the same or cheaper. This year we've also gotten to try rabbit and goat on the menu. And we've been eating veg varieties the supermarket doen's carry - usually much better tasting varieties. The biggest difference though might be the chicken. These chickens unlike supermarket chickens actually have flavor. My wife likes the eggs better too.

Originally Posted by iamwhatiseem

Once again I might catch hell from the blind here for saying this - but a lot of this is the fault of consumers.
Once AGAIN I say - if it wasn't for OUR constant choosing cheap prices over all else - companies wouldn't be constantly trying to meet the demand of "cheap".
We have loss all sense of what a "value" is in this country.
Value use to mean a good product first, followed by service and then price.
Today...price, price, price......and then 300 continued repetitions later...quality and service.

Every single purchase you make is a "vote" given to companies in what is important to you.

I reject blaming this mostly on consumers. Consumers have a portion of the blame for sure - but the bulk of the blame must go to politicians, advertisers and corporations. There are massive interests at stake here that will stop at nothing to preserve the present arrangement.

I was born into this nightmare, i did nothing to create it. And its only later in life that we are being informed of the extent of the problem.

Where consumers really are to blame is in their refusal to stand up and dismantle the system, using any means necessary.

Andrew

Originally Posted by Andrewl

I reject blaming this mostly on consumers. Consumers have a portion of the blame for sure - but the bulk of the blame must go to politicians, advertisers and corporations. There are massive interests at stake here that will stop at nothing to preserve the present arrangement.

I was born into this nightmare, i did nothing to create it. And its only later in life that we are being informed of the extent of the problem.

Where consumers really are to blame is in their refusal to stand up and dismantle the system, using any means necessary.

Andrew

I wouldn't say mostly.
More like an unwitting partner.
You have to forgive me at times - I have been angry with American consumers for yeeaars now...I tend to go over a bit when talking about them.

On one hand you have corporations who look at consumers with no more consideration than the products they sell..in fact the product comes first.
On the other hand you have a consumer base that is hellbent on their own destruction, naive as can be - and utterly complacent as long as the prices are cheap.
You talk about consumers "refusing to stand up"...pheh...you know better. People are too busy eating cheeseburgers and watching reality TV to even notice.

Sheep.